One Morning in Rio
by Kalany
Summary: One-shot. Spoilers for New Moon.


It took a couple of seconds for the sound to penetrate my mind. At first, I didn't want to respond--if the phone was vibrating, it meant the outside world was intruding, and if the outside world was intruding, it might bring thoughts of...

I moaned low in my throat, wanting nothing more than to stay curled up here in this nice, dark place until I died of thirst. But I couldn't do that, not until I made sure _she_ was safe.

I reached out a hand and snatched up the phone, glancing quickly at the caller I.D., then flipped it open. Vampires are fast; it was still only on its third ring.

"Rosalie."

"Edward." Her voice was strained, taut with some combination of emotions I couldn't place. "It's about Bella."

Rosalie was the only one in the family who would speak her name. The rest danced around the subject even when it was brought up, because they'd seen what it did to me. I couldn't forget her, couldn't stop thinking about her; as a vampire, I couldn't even escape into unconsciousness. But I could avoid thinking her name, could avoid ripping the gaping hole in my chest any wider than it already was. I'd left my still, silent heart back in Forks with her, and my chest hurt as if it were more than a metaphor.

If someone had asked me a year ago what the worst thing was that I could remember, I would have told him that it was the three days after Carlisle bit me. Nothing could compare to that burning, searing pain that spread through my entire body and _would not stop._

Nothing except this.

I must have made some sort of noise, because she'd stopped talking. I rocked back and forth, panting like a small dog as I tried to overcome the tearing, aching hole in my chest enough to speak. _Bella..._.

She was better off this way. She had to be. But I didn't have to like it. All I had to do was make sure she got her safe, secure, _human_ life to live, as it should be. That was what was left for me, and that was what I would do.

"What about Bella?" I managed to say.

"It's..." She trailed off, and I stiffened at the tone of her voice. "Alice had one of her visions, Edward."

"I thought I told her not to go keeping an eye on Bella," I growled. "What did she see?"

Through the phone I could hear Rosalie's soft sigh. "She said it wasn't something she could help. She said she was attuned to Bella still."

"_What did she see,_ Rosalie?"

There was a long pause on the other end, and then Rosalie's voice said softly enough for the phone mic to have trouble picking it up, "Bella jumped off a cliff. Into the water. Alice said she didn't come up again."

My world closed down around me in the closest I'd ever come to losing consciousness since I became a vampire. "No." The exclamation was automatic.

"I'm sorry, Edward."

"Thank you for informing me," I told her numbly, and hung up on her.

I dropped the phone just in time as the pain hit and my fingers clenched; if I'd still been holding it, I would have done much worse damage than the two-foot drop to the floor. _Bella._ Bella was gone. Dead. It didn't matter if I found Victoria, because her target was gone. My heart, my reason for living, gone, in one stupid fall...

..._jump_. She'd killed herself. She'd suicided.

It wasn't possible. Bella had _promised_. I had to believe she would never do anything like this. I would call her father, who would tell me she was out with a friend, or a new boyfriend (I growled under my breath, then checked myself: of course I wanted her to find love. That was the whole point) and then I would tell Rosalie she was wrong, that it was a chance vision of Alice's, some momentary impulse quickly stifled.

I didn't want to think about what it might mean that Bella was having even momentary impulses towards suicide, so I picked up the phone and dialed.

"Swan residence." A gruff male voice answered the phone, one I didn't recognize. I frowned--I couldn't imagine Bella having a live-in boyfriend, but if she did, he wouldn't talk to her ex-boyfriend.

So I lied. "This is Dr. Carlisle Cullen. May I speak to Charlie Swan, please?" I kept my voice pleasant with effort.

His voice altered immediately, becoming angry and tense. "He's not here."

I stiffened, ignoring the small shivers that ran down my spine, and ceased trying to control my voice. "Where is he?"

"He's at the funeral."

A wave of pain rose up and engulfed me. Four words (five, if you counted the contraction as two), six syllables...and my life was over. Everything was over.

I looked down at the phone, which I had somehow managed to close and drop without mangling again. Such a tiny object. How could something so small cause so much pain? Except, of course, it wasn't really the source of it; the source was lying somewhere in Washington State. I imagined her, surrounded by flowers, the scent heady in the air, as the small congregation sang the traditional hymns. I could clearly picture her, lying with her arms folded, as they lowered her...

She was dead. She would never blush again, or smile again, or trip over her own feet. She would never fall in love, get married, or have children. She would never graduate high school. I had killed her as surely as if I had drained her blood myself.

I would have to move quickly. If I didn't hurry, Alice would see what I was planning, and find some way of stopping me. The phone was a liability; I could be tracked with the GPS unit inside it. I didn't need to take much; I wouldn't be there long, and I wasn't coming back. My cash, my credit and charge cards, my passport. Some concealing clothes; it would be sunny in the Mediterranean this time of year. It would all fit in the pocket of my sweatshirt. The maids could take the rest.

I threw the phone into the trash can on the street as I hailed a cab, my sweatshirt hood pulled down around my face. The cabbie who stopped for me looked nervously at my concealed face, and relaxed when he saw I looked American.

"Airport," I told him curtly.


End file.
